After a six-month investigation, a group of independent experts submitted a confidential report to the U.N. Security Council affirming that North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear and missile programs. Pyongyang “has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs and continued to defy Security Council resolutions through a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea during 2018,” the experts wrote in the 149-page report, according to Reuters.
North Korea is also continuing with military activity that should theoretically be off limits. “Prohibited military cooperation with the Syrian Arab Republic has continued unabated,” the experts wrote in the report. The panel of experts also said Pyongyang had tried to sell military equipment to numerous countries, including Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.
Shortly after word of the report was published, there was fresh evidence that progress on any deal between the United States and North Korea would not come quickly as diplomats from the two countries alternated between critiques and praise at a summit in Singapore. It was “a day of head-snapping twists of tone” at the annual conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Washington Post reports.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused both Russia and North Korea of violating sanctions while North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho attacked the Trump administration for insisting on sanctions rather than “confidence building” measures. But the two also exchanged pleasantries and Pompeo oversaw the handover of a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from Trump. Even though there were some tense moments and harsh words exchanged, analysts were quick to point out there was a marked shift from last year, when it wasn’t even clear whether America’s top diplomat would be in the same room as North Korea’s foreign minister.
